1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network printer which performs printing based on printing requests received from network-connected clients.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, printers which connect to LANs or similar networks can typically receive a plurality of printing requests from a plurality of clients such as computers, faxes, and other devices connected to the network. When a plurality of competing printing requests are generated, these requests may be “spooled”, and the printing order then determined based upon either the order in which the printing requests are received, the priority status of certain requests, or other factors.
However, since the network printer is shared by many users, individual users cannot print from the network printer using special kinds of paper (colored paper, transparent paper for over head projectors, or the second side of a printed sheet, for example) not normally used by the other network users. If an individual user does load a non-standard paper into the printer to receive and print data from a particular client, that paper will also be used for printing data sent by other clients on the network. Of course, this problem is not limited to paper of special material, but is a problem of network printers encountered by users who want to print onto a sheet of a size not normally loaded in the printer, or occasionally faced by users who want to print in an alignment (landscape vs. portrait, for example) other than the one in which the printer normally prints.